Yes, this is a single shot. No blending or compositing was done on this image. I didn't mess with the aspect ratio or try to make it look larger than it is. If anything I actually reduced the brightness of this massive flash of lightning in hopes of making the image more moody. What you see before you really happened. A few nights ago we had one of the best lightning storms here on Vancouver Island that we have had for many years. Over 1,600 lightning bolts struck the southern BC coast that night. It was nothing short of spectacular. Myself, my girlfriend, and her sister decided to head down to the water in hopes of getting a better view of this natural light show. Now considering we see lightning maaaybe once a year where I live here, it comes as no surprise that I honestly have so little experience (if any at all) shooting lightning. Therefore, I am not as aware of the dangers of it as I should be. While we were down there, in my mind I thought the lightning was striking at least a good 20 or so kilometers away from us. But after a little while I noticed it was striking from a distance all around us... We were in the center of the storm. I thought to myself: "I want to see a sign that we should go back to the car before I pack things up." Cause' at that moment I was very torn between whether or not I was being paranoid and if I should just stick it out and get some photos. This was my first real experience shooting lightning and I didn't want to pass it up. Only a few minutes later though, this massive bolt struck the trees less than a kilometer away from us. And it was at that moment I knew, okay, time to go back to the car. 😳 This is definitely the most intense natural scene I have ever captured on camera. Stoked I got some photos that night but even more so that we ended up getting away safely. If you decide to go out shooting storms, please be careful. Do your research first and make sure you know when it's time to pack things up!
